In the publishing world, 2003 is likely to be remembered as the year of the political pot-stirrer -- a year when liberals and conservatives unleashed their invective, wrestled in the mud and caught our attention with a rude and rancorous Punch and Judy show.

Ann Coulter came out with "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism," arguing that liberals always "side with the enemy" whenever the country is under attack. Al Franken, author of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," countered by labeling Coulter a "nutcase" and laying waste to his archenemy, Fox News' right-winger Bill O'Reilly, with a sprightly chapter titled "Lying, Splotchy Bully."

It's entertainment, it makes good copy and it sells. Coulter enjoyed 13 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and Franken, initially reaping the publicity benefits of a failed trademark-infringement lawsuit brought against him by Fox News Network -- and a televised shouting match with O'Reilly -- is perched at No. 3 on the same list, 12 weeks after his book's release.

There's never been a time before when partisan books not only dominated the best-seller lists but also showed this kind of staying power. Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country?" claimed No. 1 on the New York Times' list of Nov. 23, followed by Franken at three, O'Reilly's "Who's Looking Out for You?" at five, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's "Bushwhacked" at six and Bernard Goldberg's new, liberal-bashing "Arrogance" at 14.

In the Bay Area, the Moore-Franken-Ivins triad is even stronger, claiming the first, second and third positions, respectively, on the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association's list, drawn from 60 bookstores. Progressive pundit Noam Chomsky, one of Bush's harshest critics, is No. 10 with his "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, " followed by "The Great Unraveling," another Bush indictment by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

The wave of partisan books is a mirror, of sorts, to an increasingly divided country, one in which name-calling and disharmony are the standard social order. The current issue of Time magazine shows President George W. Bush with a lipstick stain on one side of his face and a black eye on the other.

"There's a lot of pent-up unhappiness with George Bush," says Nelson Polsby, political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley. "I think that's driving at least half of it. Public opinion tends to polarize in a partisan way as election season approaches."

The confluence of political books on the New York Times and other best- seller lists has "definitely surprised many people in publishing," says Charlotte Abbott, book news editor at Publishers Weekly. If these books are selling well and shaping the national dialogue, she says, it's because there's "blood sport" in the scathing attacks they wage against political foes: "People like Al Franken and Michael Moore are making their messages entertaining."

"These books capitalize on polarization," says Susan Rasky, senior lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. "They play to an audience that's pissed off at the other. These are not books that ask, 'How do we bring ourselves together?' "

Rasky, who teaches political and government reporting, notes that many of the books are written by media celebrities, rather than journalists or others with political expertise. "I would argue that Ann Coulter is provocative for the sake of being provocative. She's not attempting to make any sort of journalistic argument. I don't know what you'd call her -- 'pundit' seems too distinguished."

The big sales for left-wing books can also be traced to the flare of patriotism that arose after Sept. 11, 2001, says Abbott. "It created a very strong environment for conservative books. At the same time, a lot of liberal authors began to think, 'Wait! Where are our voices?' They began to see themselves more consciously as liberals and to think about entering the debate in the way the conservatives framed it -- responding book by book."

"There's been a real void," says Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. "A lot of people think what's going on with the current administration is terrible, and they've been looking for validation of that. And a lot of what these books give you is validation, a feeling of 'Yeah, they are screwing up in Washington.' "

Surprisingly, Ivins, Moore and Franken are boosting one another's sales rather than competing. When Ivins spoke last month to an enthusiastic crowd in Berkeley, she said she had a momentary pause when she realized she'd be part of a pack. "I thought, 'Well, s -- , everybody's already said what I have to say.' Well, it turns out we all took off from different directions. There's no overlap."

While Franken writes short, punchy chapters larded with jokes and shtick, for example, Ivins and Dubose craft long, detailed anecdotes to illustrate the impact of Bush's domestic policies on working men and women.

But can Ivins and her gang inspire readers to rethink the issues dividing the country and to vote differently as a result? With so much talk about the unreliability of the news media and a growing belief on the part of liberals that the Bush administration controls and limits information, it might seem that books, with their greater capacity for in-depth analysis, are filling a gap.

Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California,dismisses that argument. "In most cases these books are merely preaching to the choir," he argues. "(Their primary function) is giving people on both sides detailed talking points."

Polsby agrees. A book can mobilize or intensify readers' political commitment, but it's unlikely to convert them to another way of thinking, he says. "Virtually everyone who buys Al Franken's book agrees with Al Franken." And virtually everyone who buys Ann Coulter's book agrees with Ann Coulter.

"It's quite common in an election year to see people get interested, to crystallize their opinions and focus," Polsby says. "I think these books could quite possibly assist in that. But bear in mind, no matter how big the sales of a book, it's still only a minor fraction of the electorate."